The 38,000 acre Ben Lomond Mountain AVA
(American Viticultural Area) located in our
part of the Santa Cruz Mountains, has a long,
but intermittent, history of viticulture.
First planted in the 1860s, the area became
prominent before the century’s end, led by
William Coope’s Ben Lomond Wine Company. His
death caused a long dormancy, but the area was
resurrected in the 1970s, inspired by the
world class Pinot Noir made by McHenry
Vineyard and Felton Empire. Today, this
appellation doesn’t get the label recognition
it deserves. In spite of reports of persistent
deer and bird damage to vineyards as well as
having been hit hard by Pierce’s disease, the
quality of fruit sourced from its vineyards
still commands respect.

Beauregard Vineyards currently is leading the
charge with 60 acres under vine and
producing the only wines currently carrying
the “Ben Lomond Mountain” appellation
designation. The 4 by 16 mile viticultural
area reaches elevations up to 2,600 feet, and
sits above the fog, soaking in summer
sunshine. The elevation and ocean proximity
ensure a cool climate, and grapes ripen over
an extended growing season.

Starting with 13 acres bought in 1949, the
wine business has captured the attention of
the Beauregard family for 4 generations. After
decades of growing mountain grown grapes like
Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon and
Zinfandel, the Beauregards decided to break
into the wine business directly. The original
13 acres of vines are still intact today and
comprise the Beauregard Ranch Vineyard,
planted with mostly Pinot Noir. From Amos to
Bud, Jim and Ryan, the family has expanded its
activities in the industry to the point of
moving their tasting room to the old Lost
Weekend bar location on Pine Flat.

Jim Beauregard was responsible for
establishing the Ben Lomond Mountain
Appellation, with the idea that the wines of
this region have their very own distinct
qualities that set them apart from the rest of
the Santa Cruz Mountain appellation. The
uniquely cool climate in Bonny Doon lends
itself to wines that have complete flavor
development and evolution, vineyards with rich
soils and diversified microclimates and an
overall feeling of rustic land-focused
viticulture.

Ryan Beauregard will speak to the RBDA
membership about his vineyard operations as
well as the special conditions Bonny Doon
provides which allow Beauregard Vineyards to
carry on in a very competitive and
occasionally somewhat undifferentiated wine
market.

UCSC Expansion Plans Dammed

In a dramatic turnaround at its March 7
meeting, LAFCO, the Local Agency Formation
Commission, inserted conditions into its
earlier approval of the extension of water
service to UCSC’s North Campus that could
delay development there for years.

At the urging of LAFCO Commissioner (and
County Supervisor) John Leopold, the
commissioners by a vote of 4 to 3 voted to
prevent the Santa Cruz Water Dept. from
delivering water to the North Campus until the
City completes a Habitat Conservation Plan
agreement with the National Marine Fisheries
Service (NMFS) and the State Dept. of Fish and
Game (DFG), and receives a “take permit” for
endangered Coho salmon and steelhead.
Violations of that permit can result in costly
fines and lawsuits. This agreement will
severely limit the amount of water that can be
diverted from the San Lorenzo River and North
Coast streams in order to preserve habitat for
these fish. The waterways are the main sources
of the City’s water supply, and the agreement
could curtail it by as much as 20 or 25%.

The reasoning behind this is that until the
agreement is completed, the amount of surplus
water the City has to supply UCSC’s growth is
very uncertain, and doesn’t meet LAFCO’s
policy that any new development must meet the
criteria of having “an adequate, reliable and
sustainable” water source.

The City has been negotiating (some say
stalling) an agreement with NMFS and DFG for
over 10 years, claiming that adequate studies
of the fishes’ needs haven’t been completed.
At the March 7 hearing, City Water Director
Bill Kocher stated that he thinks an agreement
can be reached within 2 years.

In addition to the new condition regarding the
Habitat Conservation Plan, the commissioners
also put some teeth into another condition
they approved at their Dec. 7 meeting, that
all additional water—UCSC wants upward of 100
million gallons a year (mgy)—be offset by
water conservation by the Water Dept.’s other
92,000 customers. If the conservation doesn’t
materialize, the Water Dept. will have to
limit UCSC’s water to the amount it used in
the prior year. Further, the commissioners cut
by 30 million gallons the amount of water that
would be used as a baseline for the campus,
from 206 million gallons a year to 176
million.
This triggered a possible legal problem,
because the City is bound by a Comprehensive
Settlement Agreement (CSA) that settled
numerous lawsuits, to use the 206 mgy as the
baseline for how much extra UCSC would have to
pay for the increased amount of water it uses.

The LAFCO commissioners voted to postpone
final approval of the stiffer conditions until
its legal counsel can explain what the
ramifications are of the increased baseline
figure. This is expected to take place at the
June 6 LAFCO meeting.

Besides the above, the commissioners also
voted to require UCSC to prepare a report on
the feasibility of using new or existing wells
on campus to provide water for irrigating
athletic fields, the Farm, and landscaping.

At the March 7 meeting, it was heartwarming
and encouraging to see poignant and well
researched testimony in opposition to campus
expansion given by more than 40
UCSC students and graduates under the
auspices of the Long Range Resistance, who
pledged to keep battling to preserve the
natural environment of the North Campus on
scientific, educational and spiritual grounds.
So, what are the implications for North Campus
expansion from the new conditions, assuming
they are ratified at the June 6 meeting? Under
the CSA, UCSC doesn’t have to build the
additional housing on campus it agreed to
until and unless it gets the additional water
it needs. Depending on how much water the City
loses under the Habitat Conservation Plan
agreement, this water might have to come from
an expanded version of the proposed
desalination plant.

However, there are large obstacles to the
plant’s construction, including a rejection by
City voters and environmental issues. UCSC
could try to get the State legislature to make
it exempt from LAFCO’s oversight, or it could
reinstate a lawsuit that claimed it was
already exempt. Or it could just try to live
with the reduced water supply.In any case,
UCSC doesn’t have the money now and in the
foreseeable future to begin North Campus
development, although it is trying to get
around the State’s dire economic straits by
soliciting private funding. Whether the
stricter new LAFCO conditions simply delay the
development of the pristine North Campus in
Bonny Doon, or curtail it, remains to be seen.

If the commissioners follow through on June 6
it will represent a justification of the
RBDA’s and CLUE’s (the Coalition for Limiting
University Expansion) insistence that UCSC
apply to LAFCO for extension of City water
service to the North Campus be included in the
CSA. Under State law, UCSC is exempt from
local land use regulations, and as a State
level agency LAFCO was seen as the only
opportunity for the local community to command
some legal control over what would (if it’s
all built!) be the largest development—3
million square feet of new buildings—in the
history of Santa Cruz County.

Big Step Forward for Coast Dairies

After 14 years of study, planning, wrangling,
worrying, hoping, dreaming and legal action,
the coast now seems much clearer for the
transfer of 5,750 gorgeous acres of coastal
bluffs and forests to BLM, the federal Bureau
of Land Management. On April 12, the
California Coastal Commission gave its
blessing to the transfer.

Rising above Highway 1 from Laguna Creek 7.5
miles north to Scott Creek, the land includes
farms, coastal prairie and redwood, Douglas
fir, madrone and oak forests. Its acquisition
in 1998 from a real estate speculator by the
Trust for Public Land (TPL), largely using
Packard Foundation money, raised hopes that
not only would this precious hunk of gorgeous
North Coast scenery be preserved forever, but
that the public would be able to explore and
enjoy it on foot, horse and bicycle.

The portion of the property oceanside of
Highway 1 was given to State Parks several
years ago, and the beaches opened to surfers,
swimmers, sun worshipers and shell collectors.
But concerns about use restrictions, BLM’s
management (Would control be wielded from
Washington? Would natural
gas extraction and mining be permitted?)
repeatedly delayed transfer of the inland
portion. In the first few years, after
analyzing its resources, TPL gathered an
advisory committee of individuals and interest
groups to advise on its management plan.
Perhaps fed up with the wrangling among the
diverse interests, or out of fear that the
process would careen out of its control, TPL
abruptly disbanded the advisory group after a
couple of years.

Since then TPL has almost desperately sought
to turn the land over to BLM: managing the
vast property was costing it (reportedly) over
a million dollars a year. Nonetheless,
citizens were concerned about many
issues: What would happen to the farmers who
leased their plots? Will Davenport’s water
rights be ensured? Could the fields that
border the town be limited to organic farming
methods? Are restrictions on offroad vehicles,
timber harvesting and mining strong enough to
be enforced? People, including the RBDA, kept
putting up roadblocks to the transfer to BLM,
which had to clear everything with its own
bureaucracy in Washington.

In large part credit for ensuring that the
proper restrictions are now in place goes to
Bonny Doon attorney Jonathan Wittwer and
his associates at Wittwer & Parkin, Bill
Parkin and Gary Patton, who selflessly and
indefatigably kept the pressure on to require
TPL to get a Coastal Development Permit and
clad the restrictions in iron before
transferring it to BLM, which now must write
and have the Coastal Commission approve its
management plan. In the end it was Wittwer who
crafted a strong legal argument to the
commission staff that persuaded it to include
his language in the transfer deal approval to
shield it from destructive uses and assure
that protection of Davenport’s water was on
the radar.

Bordering on the north and east with the 8,500
acres of CEMEX timberlands, which was recently
acquired by a syndicate of land preservation
organizations, Coast Dairies fills the gaps,
or nearly so, to cement together a vast
stretch of unspoiled northern Santa Cruz
County, including Wilder Ranch, the Cal Poly
lands in Swanton, Henry Cowell State Park, and
the upper UCSC campus. A few issues regarding
the subdivision remain, but the door now looks
wide open to eternal protection and public
enjoyment of what is truly a world class
nature preserve.

Open Space Easements: Trading Tax Breaks
for Land Preservation

Two statutes help keep areas like Bonny Doon
rural and natural by offering landowners
greatly reduced taxes in return for keeping
their properties largely undeveloped. The
vehicle for this is the Open Space Easement
(OSE), regulated by County Code
13.10.46113.10.463 and State Code 5107051097.
Under these codes a landowner may still be
allowed to build a house and a limited number
of accessory structures, like a barn and/or
workshop, if it is so stated in the Open Space
Easement for that particular property.

The
buildings must conform to County regulations,
including County Code section 13.10.325, which
imposes tighter restrictions on houses over
7,000 sq.ft.

Each OSE agreement between the County and a
landowner is unique to a single parcel,
although they tend to follow the same general
outline. These agreements run for 10 years
from the date of signing and are automatically
renewed each year thereafter for another 10
years. If a landowner wishes to end the
agreement, he/she has to give notice to the
County. Because of the 10year rolling renewal,
the agreement (and tax benefits) will end 10
years from the date of notice. There are
currently at least 29 active OSEs in Bonny
Doon and approximately 170 in the whole
County.

In order to approve a landowner request for an
OSE, the County must decide that preservation
of the land is in the County's interest and
that the land is worth the expense of
public funds (i.e., the loss of taxes). As per
California Code 51080, the land must meet one
of three conditions. In its natural (i.e.,
existing) state:

1. It must have
scenic value to the public, or be valuable as
a watershed or as a wildlife preserve;

2. It will add to the amenities of living in
neighboring urbanized areas or will help
preserve the rural character of the area in
which the land is located; and

3. The public interest will otherwise be
served in a manner recited in the County
resolution accepting the OSE application.

In order to preserve the natural and
scenic character of the land, no development
is allowed unless explicitly designated in the
OSE and unless the building of such structures
will not affect the open space purposes for
which the OSE was granted (CA code 51075d).

The County may not issue a permit that
violates the OSE or CA Code (5107051097) and
has a compulsory obligation to get an
injunction stopping any development should it
occur. The public has the right to obtain an
injunction should the County fail to do so.
In an interesting case now under review by the
Planning Dept., a Bonny Doon landowner whose
parcel is bound by an OSE has applied to build
a house that is over 9,000 sq. ft., plus 8
accessory buildings. The applicant is arguing
that certain very narrow interpretations of
habitable floor area really make the house
under the 7,000 sq. ft. threshold of
the Large Dwelling Permit statute. On
Jan. 23 the Planning Dept. clarified language
in that statute referring to “habitable area,”
so that it is now clear that the proposed
house is subject to that statute.

The Jan. 23 policy memo stated that “the key
focus of the regulation is to review how the
home is designed and sited from the vantage
point of views to the property and
the...proposed structure from the roads and
neighboring properties.” The County may
require changes in the building plan such as
resiting any structures, house redesign,
adding privacy screens, reducing floor area,
or other measures designed to preserve
neighboring property privacy. County Code
13.10.325d provides 11 specific criteria that
a large house must meet to obtain a building
permit.

Another very interesting development provoked
by the application for the huge house is that
the County for many years has ignored a part
of the OSE statute that requires an Open Space
Committee review building applications on
properties subject to OSEs. No such committee
exists, and hasn’t for a long time. In the
interest of fair and public review of
proposals to develop on properties held in
OSEs, the RBDA Board has asked Supervisor Neal
Coonerty to look into the matter. In turn he
has requested County Counsel Rahn Garcia to
advise him on what exactly an Open Space
Committee’s role is, how it should be
appointed and by whom, as well as when, if
ever, such a committee existed.

CEMEX Redwoods Land Update

The good news for all of us eager to legally
explore our newest local treasure, the now
preserved 8,500 acre CEMEX Redwoods land, the
scientific survey and natural resource
inventory is underway, and, according to our
sources at Sempervirens and Santa Cruz Land
Trust, so far there have been no surprises or
complicating findings. The goal is to have
this fast tracked as much as possible. This
careful work is the foundation for longterm
preservation, riparian protection, and natural
wildlife corridor habitat connections.

After the survey is completed, hopefully in
early summer, the legal contracts for
Conservation Easements can be established. The
easement will be held by the Land Trust and
Save the Redwoods League and the fee title by
Sempervirens and POST, the Peninsula Open
Space Trust. Pending these formal agreements
the owners will be seeking state funding.

There is active discussion about what to name
this property. Don’t expect CEMEX to be
part of it.

Many of the same restrictive
easements the Coastal Commission approved
for Coast Dairies (see story on page 2) are
being planned for this property. Basically
there will be no development, no motorized
access, and only careful sustainable
agriculture, grazing, and timbering allowed,
if any. There are already discussions underway
about linking the 15,000 acres of North Coast
watershed of Coast Dairies and the CEMEX land
to coordinate public access.

All of the partners welcome public comment.
Terry Corwin, Executive Director of the Santa
Cruz Land Trust, and Reed Holdermann,
Executive Director of Sempervirens, gave a
very upbeat and informative report at our
March 14 RBDA General Meeting. The next formal
public update and time for comment will be on
Wednesday, May 2, 68 PM at the Pacific
Elementary School in Davenport, which may have
already happened when you read this.

Reminder: Bike Race in Bonny Doon May 14

On Monday, May 14, worldclass bicycle riders
will again pit themselves against the steep
roads of Bonny Doon as they race from San
Francisco to Soquel in the second stage of the
Amgen Tour of California.

From Highway 1 the riders will power up Bonny
Doon Road, turn left on Empire Grade and race
up to Jamison Creek Road. The Bonny Doon
section will only take about an hour and
traffic will be halted in a rolling manner in
front of and behind the riders. The uphill
sections in Bonny Doon offer many good
opportunities to watch, and spectators will
likely be lining the roads in certain areas.
For more information on the tour and how it
might affect your travel, go to amgentourofcalifornia.com.

Going Outside? 1st Check this Site

The weather on any day in Bonny Doon, at least
from October through April, our so-called wet
season, can vary from summerlike sunshine to
torrential rain, or even snow. Want to know
how to plan or dress, or keep up with what’s
been happening? Of course you do, since our
gardens, activities and conversations are so
dependent on it. The best place to do this?
Try bonnydoonweather.com.
A “labor of love” by Barry Blanchard for more
than 10 years, the website is a datalover’s
dream of info ranging from current
temperature, wind direction and rainfall
graphs (his equipment is at about 1740 ft., at
the intersection of Martin Rd. and Ice Cream
Grade), links to forecasts, and monthly and
annual summaries. And a lot more. There is
even a chart showing California earthquakes in
the past week. Check it out before you venture
out.

Actions of the RBDA
Board April 4, 2012:
1. Authorize the purchase of copies of the
CEMEX Redwoods property deeds for $165. Passed
unanimously.
2. Form an exploratory committee to study the
feasibility of forming a nonprofit tax
deductible contribution corporation to support
the natural environment and community
welfare of Bonny Doon, and to recommend any
changes needed in the RBDA Bylaws to improve
communications and decrease expenses. Passed
unanimously.

Bonny Doon's voice in preserving our special
quality of life,
The Highlander is mailed free to Bonny Doon
residents prior to the
RBDA General Meetings, which are usually held
on second Wednesdays of
January, March, May, July, September and
November.
We encourage you to participate.

Send mail correspondence to the
Highlander Editor at the above address,
or by email, below.